Perspective

Author: lbode

We have now moved into our new offices at First Place in downtown Grand Rapids. Most of the boxes are empty and the office furniture is in place. Like most moves however there are a few glitches yet to be addressed. Like the fact that we don’t have Conference phones yet! They are telling us it may be yet another few weeks so if you need to get a hold of me please use my cell phone which is 616.430.9964. I’m trusting that it will all be in place as soon as possible.

As I was thinking about this office move across town, I got to thinking about all the times I have moved, not just an office but with my family from place to place in my life. I counted them up and while some were across town to a new house and neighborhood and others were across the country to a new town or city, I counted 21 times. Many of my moves were early in my life. In fact I often joke with folks that itinerancy has been very stabilizing for me! I went, for example, to five different elementary schools in four different states. It was an interesting experience, but as I suppose, all the experiences we have in life it is what I know because it’s what I lived.

No one who has lived in the same place all their lives can relate to or perhaps even imagine what my life has been like and in turn I struggle to comprehend what it would be like to live in the same place for 60 years. The personality traits and perspectives that come from these experiences shape how we interact with others and how we engage the world.

And of course this reality runs in all kinds of directions. The experiences that shape everyone’s life come from millions of factors that make them the unique individual they are. And I am very grateful for the wide variety of personalities and diverse perspective this creates in both my circle of acquaintances and in the world as a whole.

The problem of course is that even though we know that everyone has these various perspectives given all that has shaped their lives, all we can see and all we can know is our perspective from what has shaped us. So, just as one example, that’s why I who have moved 21 times in my life, often don’t understand other people’s connection to “place” to location or building. Those kinds of things are held very lightly for me. What this causes often though, on the part of people who have deep roots to place and location because of their life experience, is a feeling that I am insensitive and lacking in appropriate appreciation for the past.

Again we could point to a million examples of how this all works. And I doubt that it is a particularly stunning new revelation for anyone. We have seen this lived out every day of our lives with our spouse, our co-workers, and certainly in the national discourse.

What I believe we of the Church have to offer in the midst of this reality is a fresh invitation to engage in conversation with one another. I have seen this call on Social Media, I have read it in op-eds but we of the Church are in a unique position to offer something deeply significant in the face of this challenge. What we have to offer is a deep value for every person. We believe that every person is created in the image of God. We believe that every individual we will encounter today and throughout our lives has the spark of the Creator in the essence of who they are. And since we believe that we are not able to just blow people off. We are not allowed to just treat people as insignificant because they have formed a different perspective (sometimes a very different perspective!) on life from ours given their life experience. As followers of Christ we simply don’t not have the option to expect the world to live out of our mindset. We are called to listen, to build relationships, to give respect and offer Christ’s love to all those made in God’s image. It’s not easy and to be honest with you I often fail miserably at living it out. But it can’t ever be OK. It can’t just become the standard operating procedure because (did I mention?), every person, EVERY person is created in the image of God.

Well it’s a new year and the Bishop and DS’s are in the midst of the Cabinet Retreat. This retreat is the time when the “appointment season” begins. That is a bit of a misstatement because the reality is that Superintendents are always thinking about appointments! But this is the time we begin to actually make appointments by having conversations with pastors and churches about changes that will occur in July.

This is my sixth year of doing this work and I am always amazed at how the task looks as we begin. The room is literally filled with newsprint around the walls listing names of churches and pastors. As we begin on Monday the work before us seems almost impossible.

But I have always been comforted and encouraged by the amount of time we spend in prayer as we engage each of the sheets of newsprint representing a congregation of people loved by God, and pastors who have given their lives to serve Christ. There truly is always a sense of the Holy as we give ourselves to the task of putting pastors in churches.

I am grateful for the incredibly gifted people with whom I have the privilege to work. I am grateful for a gifted and kind Bishop who provides wisdom and humor and guidance as he leads us forward. I am grateful for my Cabinet colleagues who bring creativity and faith and so much knowledge to this process. And I am grateful for pastors and congregations who go and come and receive through the appointments that are made.

Ours isn’t a perfect system for the work of matching together churches and pastors for the purpose of making disciples of Jesus Christ for the Transformation of the World. No “system” is perfect. But I can tell you that so often, so very often, I have seen God work in wonderful ways through this imperfect system.

I am humbled to be a part of it. Please continue to pray for us and particularly for the Bishop as we all move together through this season. May God bless and guide us all.

I have been described in a number of settings as an “early adopter.” In case you haven’t heard this term before it is the definition of those who fall in the 10 to 15 percent of a group who are likely to respond to a new idea with, “let’s go for it!!” Early adopters tend to like change and get enthused by new ideas. It is, I think, an accurate assessment of who I tend to be.

However, I like tradition too − in some cases. I remember well my second year as a District Superintendent. The first year in this appointment was wonderful. It was a whole new ministry experience and after over three decades as a local church pastor, the shift in routine and activity was energizing. Don’t get me wrong, I love being a local church pastor. It is the heart of my calling and it has given me tremendous joy through the years, but that first year (and the years since) brought new and different ministry opportunities that were wonderful as well.

In the middle of my second year as a DS I realized something. It happened right about this time in December. I realized, as I attended various worship services throughout the District, people weren’t doing it right! The traditions and Advent practices that I brought and we celebrated in churches I served were not the ones most of the churches I was attending were doing. And I missed those traditions! I missed the traditions I had come to value and sharing those elements of worship with the congregations.

I’m glad I’m an early adopter. It helps me to be a bit more comfortable with change. As most of us are aware, change is a constant in the world we live in, and therefore needs to be relatively constant in the churches where we worship and serve. But, I’m grateful for traditions as well. I’m grateful for those things that remind us of who we have been and indeed who we still are.

So I pray that this Advent and Christmas season hold the best of both the new and the traditional for you. I pray that you will find joy in it all. I pray that you will discover a new sense of peace and hope as together we seek to follow the star and find our way to Bethlehem again this year.

I have spoken to or overheard several people in the last few weeks and months say something along the line of, “I have stopped watching the news. I just can’t bring myself to turn it on.” Now most of these individuals were not saying that because they believed the news to be inaccurate or “fake.” They were feeling as though the news itself is simply too painful. The shared feeling is that it puts them in such a state of either depression or anger that for their own mental and spiritual heath they had decided they needed to take something of a break from the constant barrage 24 hour news brings to us. I understand that feeling.

I’m also aware that there are others, maybe others reading these words, for whom the news over the last year or so has been the kind of thing they have wanted to hear for years. These persons believe that overall things are headed in the right direction politically and they celebrate what they see as positive changes.

Neither of these broad groups of people understand one another. And we wonder if there was ever a time when we were so divided. And while I find myself very clearly on a “side” in the debate, I am also as concerned as anyone about the state of the cultural divide in which we live today.

I know there have been many times when we have felt a similar cultural divide. I mean we had a civil war where we were actually killing one another over issues that divided us. In the 1960’s and 70’s the divide took many to the streets where tens of, hundreds, even thousands of people marched in protest of the US war in Southeast Asia and for civil rights.

Now, I am not at all trying to minimize the current cultural divide nor am I suggesting there are not some significant ways in which the basis for the current divide is not even more ominous than at other points in our history. What I am suggesting is that the differences and struggles are not new. While it indeed is difficult when, (as others I have spoken with express), the anticipation of Christmas dinner brings stress because we know those differences will show up and will make conversation and digestion problematic. We need in the midst of our differences to find a way to celebrate our sameness. I confess, I don’t always know how to do that in our polarizations. Sometimes, often times, it would be easier to just stay where it is safe and people think as we do. But unless we at least prayerfully try to understand one another both in our broader culture, and in our divisions within the church (which is a whole other conversation!), we will continue to live life in isolation listening to our particular brand and perspective and seeing one another as “the other.”

2,000 years ago the one, the angel, called the “Prince of Peace” was born. Would that we might discover, in these trying days, the gift of that One again.

I don’t have the answer. I wish so much that I did. But I continue to struggle. You see I believe Jesus when he says that those who live by the sword will die by the sword. I love the name we give Jesus calling him “Prince of Peace.” I believe that the concept of Christian pacifism is a very legitimate understanding of how we are called to live as followers of Christ.

But I just watched a 60 Minutes story on the ongoing struggle in Syria. The story highlighted the work of Syrian doctors from the U.S. who have been going to Aleppo and other war-torn parts of Syria to provide medical care to all the people injured in the war. The story reported the fact that Syrian president Assad has been targeting the hospitals where the doctors are working. With both barrel bombs and chemical weapons the Assad government has targeted those already injured in the war. This, as the reporters in the story pointed out, was the first identified war crime. This war crime was the basis for the forming of the Geneva Convention and the founding of the Red Cross to stop this horrific behavior.

Whenever I hear such stories, (and there are of course many other stories of unspeakable violence carried out by individuals and governments), I struggle to understand and follow what Jesus seems to ask of us.

To most, even in the church, it feels like a “no-brainer.” Of course we fight back. Of course we must stop the mad men and women of the world. And since most of them seem to have barrel bombs or AK-47s, we need to respond in kind. And I understand the logic in that thinking. I understand why I have had several calls over the past couple of weeks about having guns in church in light of the church shooting in Texas.

But it seems to me that Jesus often challenges us to go beyond logical thinking. Jesus calls us to see the future not just the right now. He invites us to see the long term consequences not just the immediate results. Jesus seems to me to be inviting us to understand that every act of violence brings about the next and the next and the next and the only way to stop it is to not live by the sword anymore regardless of the situation. It seems like that is what the cross teaches us too.

But just about the time I’m settled on that, I think of the people in the hospitals in Aleppo. Do we simply pray while the bombs continue? Paul gives us some insight perhaps when he speaks to the Romans about the government and its authority to “wield the sword” in Romans 13. But is he simply outlining the way things are, or the way of Christ?

I don’t have the answer and people way smarter, with deep faith, come down in different places on this issue. But as angry as I get at the injustice and violence in our world, the absolutely awful things that are done and especially the violence perpetrated against children; as much as my heart cries out for justice and for the offenders to “pay” or at least be stopped violently if necessary, a part of me still believes that Jesus has a way that is real and different. It is a way that leads to life. And it is a way that never includes a sword.

As we begin our Advent Journey this year, in the midst of a very violent world, may we consider how we might make peace, how we might find the alternate way, how we might be a part of fighting evil not with evil, but with love. It won’t be easy. Most will probably reject it out of hand as foolhardy, perhaps even unloving. But if we truly believe in Jesus’ call to live, love even in the face of evil, then we need to continue to look for that alternative way to engage. Perhaps a way that changes people and institutions instead of just trying to overpower the current version.

I must confess I have not read a lot of the older devotional material from centuries past. I have worked my way through Thomas a Kempis and certainly a good deal of John Wesley, but beyond them I have only picked up snippets here and there of the older saints. I recently discovered however a gem in a devotional I have used on and off over the years entitled, “Prayers For Ministers and Other Servants.” This devotional provides several readings from a wide variety of authors along with a pattern for worship. The piece that struck me is from a book entitled “The Captivating Presence” by Albert Edward Day. I want to share it with you this week in hopes that it touches you as it did me.

“I came to a new understanding why Jesus passed up the religious establishment of his day, the economically secure, the socially prestigious, and sought out the poor, the outcast, the sinner, the broken, the sick, the lonely. He felt, as we so often do not feel, their sorrow. He was acquainted, as we too seldom are, with their grief. On Calvary he died of a broken heart. But that heart was broken long before Good Friday, by the desolation of the Common people. “In all their afflictions he was afflicted.” Most of the time we are not. We seem to have quite a different conception of life. We avoid as much as possible the unpleasant. We shun the suffering of others. We shrink from any burdens except those which life itself inescapably thrusts upon us. We seek arduously the wealth and power that will enable us to secure ourselves against the possibility of being involved with another’s affliction. Lazarus sometimes makes his way to our door step. We toss him a coin and go on our way. We give to our charities. But we do not give ourselves. We build our charitable institutions, but we do not build ourselves into other’s lives.”

As I read these words I found them describing all too well my failure to care as Jesus cared, my failure to see as Jesus saw. I found myself struck by how easy it is for me, in the “busyness of life” to pass by and ignore the burdens of others.

As we anticipate our Thanksgiving celebrations this week. As we share together in our feasting and the warmth of our homes. Let us not forget those for whom such times only serve as reminders of what they do not have. Let us give thanks not only with our prayers, but with our lives as well.

There are a number of things I thought about putting into Castings this week. Certainly the news is full of issues I might have addressed and invited us to see from our faith perspective. There are issues in the General Church that could have provided conversation and reflection as we seek to find our way forward through our differences to where God might call us to go. There are things going on in my own life that I thought about inviting you into using as a relational connection with the kinds of struggles we all face and again inviting us to see God in the midst of it all.

But, ultimately, I don’t want to go to any of those places. I am not up this morning for engaging in deep political discussion or theological debate or even a conversation about my wonderful grandchildren (well, maybe that!).

In the midst of the violence, the contention, the pain, the stress, the fear, and the uncertainty that every day seems to bring, I just want to share one thing with you this week, it is these words from Jesus:

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.Not as the world gives do I give to you.Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.
~ John 14:27

We pray every week, in most of our congregations, the prayer, “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” The assumption, I believe, is that there will be experiences of trespass to deal with, right?! Jesus would not have included this imperative into the disciple’s school of prayer if it wasn’t going to be a rather ongoing need.

And one of the things about this whole idea is that Jesus doesn’t distinguish between major and minor offenses, does he? There isn’t an asterisk in the prayer that identifies certain trespasses as exceptions to the rule. And even more than that what Jesus is inviting us to pray is for God to forgive us in the same way we forgive others. That’s a bit of a challenge to me most days. I’m quite frankly, not always as forgiving as I want God to be towards me! But the call is clear, isn’t it? We are to be those who forgive. We are to be those who forgive all who trespass, who injure, who sin against us.

I have listened to some of the comments coming from individuals who had family members killed in the most recent mass shooting in Texas. Their expressions of forgiveness and grace have been deeply moving and meaningful to me. They remind me of the incredible response to the shooting of 11 girls at an Amish school in 2006. In that case the children were held hostage for hours and ultimately 5 were killed and 6 others wounded by the gunman Charles Roberts.

This might be one of those places where we would try to put an asterisk if we were writing Jesus’ prayer. I mean we are willing to forgive some “trespasses” but this is beyond anything that could be expected or even suggested right? There must be an exception here. But a Lancaster, PA paper told a different story.

“In the midst of their grief over this shocking loss, the Amish community didn’t cast blame, they didn’t point fingers, they didn’t hold a press conference with attorneys at their sides. Instead, they reached out with grace and compassion toward the killer’s family.

The afternoon of the shooting an Amish grandfather of one of the girls who was killed expressed forgiveness toward the killer, Charles Roberts. That same day Amish neighbors visited the Roberts family to comfort them in their sorrow and pain.

Later that week the Roberts family was invited to the funeral of one of the Amish girls who had been killed. And Amish mourners outnumbered the non-Amish at Charles Roberts’ funeral.”

This is incredible grace. It’s the kind of incredible grace God shows us and offers to us every day. May we be those who live out this extraordinary grace with one another even in very troubling times, as we follow the one who shows us the way.

On Monday of this week I was in a conversation with someone and in the midst of our conversation I asked if they were aware that tomorrow (Tuesday) was the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. They answered, “No, but I know it’s Halloween!” I suspect this is the reality for many!

I got to thinking about this and the possible implications for the Church. And what I’ve come to as I have been pondering, is that, for the Church it’s critical that we know both. Here’s why.

We need to know about the Reformation because it is a core component of who we are. I read a great article in the Washington Post outlining the fact that whether you know much of anything about the Reformation, it has affected life in some very significant ways across cultures during the last 500 years. And that’s important. But we of the Church need to hold onto, celebrate, and remember the Reformation because it sets our theological perspective in place. While John Wesley certainly developed our branch of theology out of the core components of the Reformation, without it we would not have our Church or our faith understanding. Our deep appreciation of grace as the cornerstone of the Gospel and so many other aspects of who we are flows out of the 1517 declarations that Luther put upon the Wittenberg Chapel door. So it is crucial that we affirm, remember and give thanks for the Reformation.

But we need to know about Halloween too! By that I mean we need to connect with our culture. We need to be outside the church, in our communities, engaging with people who have no idea that Tuesday was the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. We need to connect to our culture in ways that live out our Reformation faith in relevant and real life ways. We need to be clear that while our history is rich and deep, what we bring to the marketplace of ideas is an expression of genuine practical hope that is up to date and life giving today, in every setting of life. It is a faith that makes a real difference. One that is centered not just in the head or even in the heart, but is expressed through the hands as well.

So I’m grateful for the opportunity we’ve had this week to remember our roots. To celebrate the gift of grace and faith so wonderfully integrated into the Reformation and its impact upon the Church right up to today.

And I’m grateful for Halloween! For it too, along with so many other events and aspects of our culture, provides us the opportunity to again, in practical and real ways, connect that old time message with today’s people living in today’s world.

As we get closer to the time when we will begin this journey as one Annual Conference, I thought it might be helpful to outline for you some of the plans as we move into this new reality.

First, by January 1, 2018 (and probably before) we will have the final boundaries of the new 9 Districts in place and that will be shared across the state. As you, hopefully, are aware we are moving from 12 Districts which make up the current West Michigan and Detroit Annual Conferences to 9 Districts that will make up the new Michigan Annual Conference. That means of course that all 9 Districts will be new entities with new names as well as congregational makeup.

But before the Grand Rapids District closes, we are going to have a celebration! On January 27, 2018 from 9:00am – noon we will gather to celebrate the 50 years of ministry we have shared in the United Methodist Grand Rapids District. Our former District Superintendent, now Bishop Laurie Haller, will be preaching as we gather for worship. We’ll hear stories of where we have been and what has been accomplished as we have walked together these five decades. So make sure that this date is on your calendar, you will not want to miss it! Details are coming soon.

Then as we look forward to the beginning of the “new” District we will have some opportunities to get together in regions to talk about hopes and dreams. That process will culminate in an Organizing District Conference on Sunday, April 22, 2018. At that Conference we will elect the needed Disciplinary Committees, District Committee on Ministry, District Committee on Building and Location, and the District Committee on Superintendency. We will also elect a District Visioning Team that will lead us into our first year helping us to discern what leadership structure we will need going forward. It has not been finally decided at this point, but we may also be selecting a name for the District at that organizing conference.

Then on July 1, 2018 we will begin functioning as 9 Districts in one Annual Conference. The caveat to that July 1 beginning is that from a legal and financial perspective we will not be the Michigan Annual Conference officially until January 1, 2019. We are still working on how those details will be worked out in that six month period, but I trust and am sure we will find our way.

These are exciting times and I look forward, as I hope you do, to the ways our new District and our new Annual Conference will help congregations make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world!